


When the Armies of Emotion Go Out to Fight

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 04:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is something Danny needs to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Armies of Emotion Go Out to Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm. Not sure. Also, unedited.
> 
> Title taken from Nick Drake's _Cello Song_.

“Here’s the thing,” Danny said as he pushed past Steve into the house. 

He had his arms crossed over his chest, shirt sleeves stretched as tight as his whole body seemed to be. He was the epitome of tense, uncomfortable. Instead of barreling forward with whatever the rant of the moment was about, Danny paced a few times in front of the couch, calf brushing against the coffee table once or twice. Several times, he made a show of opening his mouth and withdrawing one hand, index finger up, as if he were going to speak, but then just closed off again and kept moving. 

Steve watched, also mute, primarily because the sheer volume of shit he’d been slogging through for days had left him physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. It was too much. His head spun with it all, and he couldn’t help but think he hadn’t managed to retain control as well as he’d have liked about certain things. Chin’s broken face sprang into his head, those eyes so dark with grief it hurt to think of them even now. Then his mother’s face and Wo Fat’s appeared, kind of melded together in a nauseating collage.

Now tornado Danny was here to put a cap on the end of a rough few days and Steve didn’t resent Danny showing up. He didn’t, never would deep down where it counted. He was just tired and looking at Danny so tense and radiating anger only made him feel it all the more himself. Sometimes he thought he and Danny were like some sort of unhealthy parasitical beings with each other’s emotions and he was startled to realize he’d also drawn his arms up in a body-hugging cross over his chest. He dropped his arms, conscious of how strong the urge to return to that position was.

“What, Danny?” Steve said finally, after an odd minute of the strained silence. “What’s the thing?”

Danny collapsed onto the sofa, arms sagging from his self-hug to flop at his sides. He looked small all of a sudden, smaller anyway. Grey-faced and tired and washed out and exactly how Steve felt himself. He looked up at Steve, eyes piercing even in their weary, bloodshot state.

“You got beer?” Danny asked.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, thumbed toward the kitchen. Danny didn’t ask about beer. From day one, Danny had simply wandered in and taken. His beer, his friendship. Everything that came after. When Danny didn’t move, he padded to the kitchen, grabbed two bottles and opened them. Danny hadn’t moved an inch by the time he’d returned, except for to scoot down and lean his head against the back of the sofa and close his eyes. Steve stared for a minute, heart starting to race a little. What now, he thought, what? For so long now, Danny opened his mouth and bad news came out of it. Logic said at some point it had to stop, the well of shit had to run dry; his life was filled with everything but logic.

And, more, Steve did not want to build up a lasting association between Danny and bad news. 

“Danny,” Steve said, head whirling. “You need to speak. Fuck knows I never thought I’d have to coax you to talk.”

Danny cracked open an eye, but didn’t change position. He ignored the Longboards that Steve set in front of him in favor of flopping one hand into his lap and clearing his throat.

“I need clarification,” Danny said, almost calm and almost sounding rational. “I’m the one who needs you to talk.”

“Huh?”

“It’s just.” Danny sat, inched to perch at the edge of the sofa, hands on knees. “I don’t know and you know I don’t like not knowing.”

At least it wasn’t more horrific news. Steve had no clue what Danny meant, though, and he was too tired to try to figure it out on his own at this point. He sat on the edge of the chair, and put his hands on his knees. He hung his head down as he recognized that he was again mirroring Danny but didn’t care this time. Immediately his neck cracked and released some of the tension he’d been carrying for days. The relief would be temporary, but he’d take what he could get. 

“Danny, I’m really tired, okay, and you know it’s been a shitty few days.” Steve stared at his partner, frowned at the darkness in Danny’s eyes, the unhappy lines around his mouth and of course, of course he wasn’t the only one reeling, here. His issues seemed so much bigger, but only because they were _his_ to own and carry. “You have to be more specific for me.”

Danny looked at him for a few heartbeats, to the point Steve’s stomach started to clench in horrible anticipation. Danny’s words could have the effect of physical blows, and Steve had been punched so often lately he wasn’t sure if he knew which figurative way was up. His head ached with trying to stay steady on his feet.

“No, you know what? This is stupid,” Danny said, standing so suddenly he bumped the coffee table and the beer bottles teetered dangerously for a moment. “You’ve got bigger things to deal with. You don’t need me adding pressure.”

God. Damn it, all of a sudden Danny looked like he had in the morgue, with Malia lying there so cold and gone and Chin appearing almost as cold and gone. Steve couldn’t tell whose pain Danny was living. There were too many options to choose from. He only knew he couldn’t take that face right now, did not want to see it. He stood and closed the gap between them, pulled Danny close to him. It was only when Danny’s arms went around his back that he could put a quantifiable measure to how ungrounded he’d been feeling. Danny had this uncanny ability to make him feel better just by being there, but touch was even more powerful. The wave of relief he felt at having Danny with him, finally close like this, was more intense, more lasting than a simple neck crack. 

His heart pounded at the way Danny seemed to burrow closer still despite having just made to go, as if he wanted to climb into Steve’s skin and stay there. Steve ran his right hand up, cupped the back of Danny’s neck, backed them up until he could sit on the chair arm again and pull Danny between his legs. The angle was less awkward this way and he pressed his nose and lips against the rough stubble on Danny’s neck and breathed deeply the smell of sweat and Danny. It had been forever, it seemed, since it was the two of them in this little bubble of theirs where nothing could hurt them. He’d missed Danny, as he always did when he was off on personal pursuits, but he could not, would not willfully put Danny in that kind of danger. Their daily lives bore enough of that. 

“Danny,” he said into Danny’s neck, “tell me.”

“Vegas wouldn’t be so bad,” Danny said, hoarse. His swallows were audible. “You said that.”

Steve held his breath for a moment, savoring the scent of Danny as if it might be his last. He closed his eyes and nodded. He had. He had meant it, in a way, but now the pit in his stomach was telling him something had been lost in translation. The very idea of having Danny that far away made him uneasy, but he would not watch Danny lose Grace. Never again could he bear witness to that.

“It isn’t what it sounded like.”

Danny withdrew from the hug, just far enough to meet Steve’s gaze. His eyes were tired, the laugh lines around them making him look old instead of full of life, as they usually did. 

“I know. I know what you were going for, I do, so please don’t think I don’t. I get that you have major abandonment issues and holy fuck do you have the right to them. I know you haven’t had a damned second to process any of the shit that’s been happing to you and near you.” Danny rubbed his hands up Steve’s back, shifted to hold him by the biceps. “I just … I’m not your mother. I’m not your father.”

“Jesus, Danny,” Steve said, head rearing back at the instant pain the very idea caused. “I know you aren’t.”

“Yet, you project. It’s _complicated_ and also so damn _simple_ , what a parent will do for their child. I cannot have Grace think I will not fight for her. I know there will be fallout. She will know her mom and dad aren’t getting along, again. Fights can be fought without bloodshed, though. That’s how it works in a regular family,” Danny said with a shrug. He looked at Steve sadly. “I won’t say it’s not entirely selfless, me wanting her to stay here, but I’ve talked with her. I don’t make decisions in vacuums.”

Steve nodded again. He didn’t know if this was really what Danny had come here for, and could tell his partner wasn’t quite finished.

“The real problem I have is that I don’t think it’s just Grace I need to fight for, Steve, and I don’t know. I’m not sure what it is I think I’ve got here, now, besides her.”

The pain in Steve’s head spiked. All of a sudden, the warmth of Danny’s hands wasn’t enough. He had no idea how to make Danny understand, no words held the right meaning to what Danny was in his life. It wasn’t definable. No dictionary in the world could name it. His eyes went hot and wet, his throat dry at the thought of what he might become without someone to anchor him. It would be a return to how he was, before. Before Danny. He pressed a kiss to the corner of Danny’s right eye, as if that could smooth the lines there, then another to the creases on Danny’s forehead. 

He tugged Danny to him, tilted his face slightly and kissed the tight line of his mouth until it softened. Steve ran his tongue along the slight chap of those lips, gave a muted moan when Danny opened for him, kissed back with only the barest hesitation as the tension Danny had been carrying relaxed. Steve lost himself in the wet sounds, the way Danny made a strange noise from deep in his throat as Steve sucked gently on his tongue. And even this wasn’t enough to express what he meant, he thought dazedly as Danny broke the kiss to study his face with a furrowed brow and spit-slick lips. He let his hands fall to Danny’s torso, thumbs hooking into waistband of his pants.

“Me. You have me,” Steve said, feeling so bare for just those few words. 

Emotion tripped across Danny’s face, as if a war was being waged right there. Steve read them all, easily. Danny was so free with his feelings it often astonished him. He saw the fondness, the relief tainted by uncertainty. He had to make Danny see. He took a shaky breath, kissed Danny quickly before he wrapped his arms around Danny’s shoulders and held him tight.

“I don’t _want_ you to go. Of course I don’t. Tell me what you need to help you stay.”

“You,” Danny said softly into his chest.


End file.
